Max
by Lucillia
Summary: Before Season 1, Dean wins an invisible dog off a mysterious guy in black during a poker game.
1. The Game

Dean probably would have noticed that there was something a bit off with the poker game that he'd practically gate-crashed if he hadn't been drunk at the time. What he did notice was that it had taken his last five-hundred dollars to bribe his way to the table where there were piles of chips and money.

At some point near dawn, Dean and a short dark haired, dark eyed man in black who spoke with an English accent were the only two at the table. In the middle of the table was a pile of cash and a large number of chips.

"Tell you what." the man in black said as he pushed the last of the cash forward. "If you throw in your soul, I'll throw in my dog Max here."

The man in black patted something invisible that was somewhere at his chest level before tossing a set of pet tags on the table.

"Yeah, sure, whatever." a completely smashed Dean who was eying all of the money in front of him said.

"That didn't go as planned." Crowley said ten minutes later as Dean Winchester walked off into the sunrise with about fifty grand in cash, twenty-seven contracts, and the hellhound he'd fondly nicknamed Stupid on a leash.


	2. You Want Me To Go Where? !

Dean sighed as he crawled into bed, practically falling asleep as soon as his head touched the pillow less than a minute after he arrived back at his motel room, only bothering to unclip Max's leash and remove his shoes. As he fell asleep, he felt something jump up onto the bed and curl up next to him. When he reached out, his hand hit something warm with rough spiky fur.

_Oh, yeah, the dog._ Dean thought as he drifted off petting what felt like the creature's back as he did so.

Dean awoke late in the afternoon with a killer hangover and his cell phone ringing in one ear, and his new dog softly growling in the other. Grumbling, he answered his phone to find that it was his dad on the other end, and that he had a job for him that needed to be dealt with ASAP.

"You want me to go where?" Dean groaned, not quite sure if he could believe his ears, considering what he'd thought he'd seen on the news the night before when he'd been at the bar.

He turned on the t.v. and switched it to the news to double check.

"...And Hurricane Rita is expected to make landfall in..."

Just as he thought.

He turned the t.v. off.

There was an authoritative bark on the other end of the line.

"Alright, fine dad, New Orleans it is." Dean said before hanging up on his dad and making his way to the bathroom.

An hour later, a still hung over Dean who was wincing at the light afternoon sun was dressed and ready to go. Max was already waiting by the door holding his leash in his invisible mouth.

"Alright boy, I hope you like water." Dean said as he clipped the leash to the collar which was the only visible part of his new pet. "Because there's going to be an awful lot of it where we're going."

After scraping up the scuffed salt line that protected the room, Dean and his new dog made their way out to the car.

Crowley watched the black Impala depart with what used to be his dog in the back seat. The funny thing about hellhounds was that they tended to reflect their owners' personalities and expectations of them. The animal who now had a new owner had started changing already, which shouldn't have been all that surprising considering who Dean's brother was. The story of how Azazel had handed out hellhounds to the first generation of his special kids and Sam Winchester had somehow turned his into an elderly golden retriever had practically become a legend in the millennium that was the decade that had passed since the boy had been given temporary control of the animal. According to the legend, the creature had never recovered from its transformation and had to be put down.


	3. Dean, Your Dog Is Fugly

Dean knew his dog which he was reasonably certain was a dog, as after carefully running his hands over the creature, he'd determined that Max was indeed furry and dog shaped, wasn't normal. What invisible dog is? But, after the creature had saved him from the Hoodoo practitioner's girlfriend who'd shown up with a shotgun, and helped him aid in the post-Katrina clean-up of New Orleans which had been halted by Hurricane Rita which had re-flooded the Ninth Ward when he decided to stay behind and help out for a while, he'd decided that despite Max's little allergy to salt and iron, it wasn't evil and that killing it would just be mean.

He couldn't get the sound that poor dog had made the time he'd tested the creature by sprinkling salt on it out of his head, especially after the hurt and whining creature came up to him and hesitantly licked his hand afterward and forgave him. He knew that he should probably get rid of Max, but he found himself thinking _It isn't hurting anybody _every time his hand reached for the salt or the iron crow-bar he kept for ghosts. Unlike the ghosts he'd whacked any number of times, Max was solid, and very real. Each night as he crawled into bed, he could feel the large furry creature curl up next to him like the dog Dad had never gotten him and Sam no matter how many times they - mostly Sam - had begged.

As for the contracts he'd also won off of the man-witch that he'd won Max from, he'd released the poor slobs who'd sold their souls for cash, love, fame, and in seven incidences, to cure a relative of a deadly disease. He didn't need people's souls, and wouldn't know what to do with them if he got them anyway. He didn't even want to know why that man-witch was going around collecting souls anyway.

The fifty grand was shut in the trunk along with the weapons, and would be going towards the Dean Winchester Hunting Fund. He'd need that fifty grand since his dad had disappeared, and finding him or finding out what had happened to him would likely be a difficult undertaking. The potential difficulty of the search for his dad was why he was headed to Stanford to get Sam despite the fact that his brother had told him to get lost when he'd tried to drag his brother on a hunt after he'd finished his freshman year a little over two years ago.

That whole incident had been an unmitigated disaster which he'd rather forget, and had been why he'd never approached or even tried to talk to Sam in the two years since. He still checked to make sure that Sam was still alive every once in a while though.

As he drove to Palo Alto, Max sat in the back chowing down on a hamburger. The creature wouldn't touch the dry dog food he'd bought, but would eat meat if he gave it to him. Max preferred it raw but would eat burgers in a pinch. He briefly wondered how Sammy would react to his new pet, considering...

The first thing Sam said when he hopped into the car in order to head to Jericho, California where their dad had been when he'd last contacted Dean was "Dean, your dog is fugly."


	4. Most Beautiful Dog in the World

Right now, Sam didn't care how freaking ugly and unnatural Dean's new pet was. He was too focused on giving the creature as much raw hamburger as its massive stomach could hold. So far it had turned out to be ten pounds and counting. Dean was getting put out by the mess the animal was making of the back seat, but he had stopped complaining after he'd promised his brother that after his interview was over tomorrow, he would personally clean the entire car until it was completely spotless.

Fortunately, the fact that the car was moving wile the dog was eating didn't make the creature ill, and it appeared that dog puke wouldn't be one of the things he would be forced to clean out of his brother's car tomorrow afternoon. He didn't want to even stop and consider the others, since one of the words that could be used to describe Dean was "Promiscuous".

In that moment when Dean's dog somehow started tearing into that Woman in White who had been in the process of trying to kill him, it had been one of the most beautiful things he'd ever seen. One moment, the ghost had been trying to tear his heart out, and the next, it was wounded and fleeing towards the house where the ghosts of its children had dragged it to Hell.

No matter what dad said about Dean's dog, he would help keep the creature alive even if he had to keep it himself just to keep dad from trying to kill it when Dean finally found him.

Based on now much the ugly mutt who could easily put what he'd previously thought was the ugliest dog in the world to shame could put away, it would be a very expensive prospect, one that might nearly cripple his already tight budget.

Still, the animal did save his life so he could go home to Jess...


	5. Max, Wendigo Hunter

"Yeaurgh!" Sam exclaimed as he was suddenly pulled out of yet another nightmare.

They'd stayed long enough to bury Jess before they set off to the coordinates their father had left them in his journal, and throughout that entire time, Dean's dog which wasn't looking quite as ugly as it had when he'd first laid eyes on it had never left his side. This had to be the fifth time he'd been pulled from a nightmare by the creature having licked him awake, and he didn't know whether to be thankful and disgusted.

The sixth time that he was pulled from the nightmare, they were at the coordinates where they soon learned that they were hunting Wendigo.

"So, your invisible dog is going to protect us?" the hunter - the normal sort that went after wild animals, not their sort - that the missing campers' sister had hired to track the "bear" that had gotten her brother said before laughing. "Is that before or after the Easter Bunny shows up?"

The man quit laughing later after Dean's dog rescued him from the Wendigo, asshole though he was.

"So, what was it you boys hunt again?" the man asked days later as they headed back after dealing with the Wendigo, warily giving Dean and his "invisible" canine companion a wide berth.


End file.
